Hello, I'm Janis Holler, the art and soul behind Loco Lobo Designs.

I've been doing the "art thing" since I was old enough to hold a crayon or pencil.  I drew and painted everything I could think of, which early on was horses, horses and more horses.  But then, about 20 some years ago, I stumbled across this incredible medium, polymer clay.  Needless to say, I'm still trying to see what all you can do with this stuff, and have yet to run out of ideas!

I'm asked quite a bit about my creative process, since as you can tell once you cruise my site or visit me at a show, I make many different types of pieces.  My answer is that I'm blessed (or cursed) with creative ADD (attention deficit disorder).  I have such a plethora of ideas of what to make, that often while I'm in the process of making one design, I stop what I'm doing to suddenly focus on the "blazing" new idea that pops into my head.

I constantly strive to push my creativity to new limits and techniques.  Whatever message is trying to project through me in my art, will not be denied.  I truly believe that my mission is to bring beauty into the lives of others and connect them with long lost or just ignored emotions through my art.

As you can probably tell from looking through this site, I have an affinity for animals, nature and other art forms.  I have also done time as an Electrical Engineer in both R&D Science and High Tech environments.  Yes, in other words, I've been a geek.  But nothing comes close to art!

I live with my husband Konrad, cats Genevieve, Milo and Luna, and fish (too numerous to name) in the foothills west of Berthoud, Colorado.   Inspiration is everywhere if we just choose to notice!

 

What Is Polymer Clay?

                                   Polymer Clay began as a children’s modeling clay over 60 years ago in Germany.  Comprised of plastic polymers, it can be baked in a regular oven at 275° to cure it to finished hardness.  Polymer clay is the only artist medium that can be used to emulate glass, metal, fiber, drawing/painting, stone/bone/wood, sculpture/ceramics and much more.

                                   It’s manufactured by three main companies and sold as Sculpey (Premo), Fimo and Kato.  It comes in a multitude of colors that can be mixed together, much like paints, to create other colors.  Polymer clay has become the fastest growing new art medium in recent years with jewelry and art pieces made from it being shown and sold in local craft shows all the way up to the Smithsonian Museum!

One very popular technique that polymer clay lends itself well to is called millifiori.  Millifiori (meaning “thousand flowers” in Italian) was originally a glass working technique whereby long thin glass rods of different colors are combined using high heat to form one larger rod that when the end is sliced off, resembles tiny flowers.  The rods are referred to as “canes” (think candy canes) and the slices taken from these rods are called “cane slices”.

Polymer clay can be manipulated by hand very much like glass to produce extremely intricate “canes” that can then be used for beads, jewelry and other art work.  The canes can be built quite large (think loaf of bread) and by pulling, pounding and stretching can be reduced in size so that slices from these canes can be applied to wearable size items, such as beads.

 Polymer clay is extremely strong and durable when cured correctly and using a little common sense when caring for items made from it will help them last lifetimes.  Don’t clean it with chemicals of any kind, a soft damp cloth is usually all it needs.  Cured clay can soften in hot locations, but will return to it’s original hardness when cooled down.

Loco Lobo also represents the following artists:

Eileen Loring